CISV vs. The Environment.

This is by far, the most inspiring motion on the table to date. It's not about restructurung, changing policies or guideliens, nor about approving personal, but about about giving our organization new momentum.

Sustainability has become one of our 4 educational pilars, and this should be reflected not only in what we preach, but also how we work. In an excellent recent issue of IJB Thinks, this issue is discussed in various ways, and the more you think about it, the more it becomes clear, that flying people around the world for something they could also learn in a local setting contradicts our princip

However, I'm not without doubt, that giving the environment a bigger place in our philosophy is all good: It is already really difficult to explain CISV to others: The concepts of "peace education", "non-formal education", "experiential learning", "active citizenship" and "peace through friendship" are already a jigsaw-puzzle that is hard to convene. How more difficult would it be, if "working towards a sustainable environment" became part of it all. And also, aren't there already enough other organizations out there doing just that?

I'm also worried about the fact that this motion is so unspecific: A new taskforce would need at least year to find volunteers and define it's exact tasks. Furthermore it will be difficult to mark the point, when all tasks of this "taskforce" are fulfilled and the team consequently dissolved. In fact, I see a more ongoing thing here.

Also, I see a great opportunity here for a co-operation with an NGO, that specializes in this area. Although not exactly an NGO, CISV Germany already now is running a co-operation for AIM in the exact sense of this motion. From the Infopack 3:

We proudly present the first carbon neutral AIM. Our sponsor Entega (a company, which produces electrical power, is on the way to be the largest producer of renewable energy in Germany, www.entega.de) will reforest as much as is needed to absorb all our carbon emissions during AIM. They will also neutral the carbon footprint due to travel emissions of all juniors to the IJBC. We are really happy that we will have a big international meeting without negative effect on our environment. In order to help to keep our carbon footprint as low as possible we ask you to put your notebooks in stand-by mode whenever you don't need it.

OVerall, I think this motion is more about the fact that the question of environmental impact should enjoy a higher priority in the work of an "active global citizen" (something I've discussed here before), and thus, in CISV. And this notion should be welcomed and the motion approved.